


Taking Out the Trash

by reese_carlisle



Category: Punisher (Comics)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-30
Updated: 2007-07-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:34:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22274920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reese_carlisle/pseuds/reese_carlisle
Summary: Frank meets a woman who really, really doesn't like her ex-husband. Thing is, her ex is just the kind of made man that Frank goes out of his way to unmake.





	Taking Out the Trash

**Author's Note:**

> I marked this as abandoned, since I haven't written on it in over 12 years, but you never know...

I loved Western movies as a kid. I saw Rio Bravo at the corner theater. The Magnificent Seven. El Dorado at the drive-in in my first car. The good guys used guns, but they were stand-up heroes, never backshooters, always honorable.

Easy for you, Duke, I thought, and looked through the M40's scope at the back of my first target for the evening. I got a warm feeling  
using the M40A1. I'd only been back from the jungle five years then, and it was still comfortable in my hands.

Okay, it still is now, too. Go figure.

I got my breathing straightened out while I reviewed my engagement plan. There were four punks in the alley, of which I only needed one able to talk. If they didn't need to talk, they didn't much need to breathe. Sniper rifle gave me a killshot for the first one. If I was lucky, I could account for number two, also, but I haven't found depending on luck that great an option, so I figured it'd get hot from there. On the other hands, these were idiots. They were carrying, but three of them had their pistols shoved in their pants under shirts or jackets.

If I got any more relaxed I'd have a nap. Time for the flag to drop.

I fired my one .30 caliber shell into the guy I'd been watching. The rifle gave its moderate kick and I quickly shifted the scope to see if I could get another round off, but the junk pushers were in motion. I didn't worry about the first target. He wasn't going anywhere. I unlimbered another old friend, an M16, and stepped out on the fire escape.

This is where it got tricky, and I had no time to think about it. Telling it after the fact, it might sound straightforward. Three were up and one was down. The three were in various stages of trying to go for their pistols, see where I was, and running like hell. I was looking down at them from high up one wall of a dead end alley. Shooting up at someone is hard. All part of the plan. I wasn't worried about bystanders or the cops. This was Hunts Point. If anyone came down this alley, it would probably be to burn it down. But if I let these scumbags move too far, they'd get the overflowing dumpster in the way, or worse, they'd get out of the alley and that would be that. On the other hand, if I opened fire too quickly, my only targets would be their heads, and that wouldn't leave me anyone for conversation.

Like I said, I needed one. I just didn't see any reason the other two should get to leave.

At the time, I couldn't stop to think about it. I just let them run several yards to get a better angle, then laid some automatic fire at their legs. It wasn't surgeon's work. It just got the job done. I ran down enough steps to be able to jump down to the ground and had a look around.

A tall, bony guy in dirty white t-shirt and jeans was stretched out against the far wall. He'd gotten the .308 in the back of his head. Short range, and I'd had the right training. The other three were farther down the alley, also on the ground, but definitely moving. They'd lost the spirit for going for their guns, though. The .223s weren't big but they keep you busy when they're in you. I let the rifle hang, drew my sidearm, and put down two of the three. You don't need to know what they looked like, and I don't really remember. They looked like body bags to me.

"Let's talk," I told the other guy.

* * *

I'd taken out the trash in the alley because of a woman I'd met that morning.

Don't get me wrong. I didn't mind doing it for its own sake. I'm just not sure I would have bothered if I hadn't needed the information. The small fry aren't always career scum. They're just not my usual targets. I guess I just don't feel the hate.

A guy like Vic Fontana, though. Mobbed up, afloat in the river of drugs moving through the city, and definitely unconcerned with his fellow man. For him I could feel it.

Gina found me having breakfast in a diner. They served lousy food, but on the other hand, the atmosphere was unpleasant. The income from taking out the human trash is inconsistent, and sometimes you're up, sometimes you're down. I was down, so I was at the diner, and it was there she sat down across from me and said, "Francis."

I looked her over. Black hair, dark eyes, the kind of features I used to see every time I went to a family reunion, which, realistically, was never, but sometimes you couldn't shake family. That didn't really impress me much these days; I killed a lot of guys with close connections to the old country. Personally, I'm from Queens. I was already in the motherland as far as I cared.

"Wrong number," I said.

"Francis," she repeated. "Francis Castiglione. I know who you are."

"Apparently not," I told her. "I knew a Francis Castiglione as a kid, if it helps. I think he died in Vietnam."

"I suppose he did," she said. "Only Frank Castle came home, hah? Well, Frank, I thought maybe we could get off on the right foot if we didn't bring these things up, but okay. I know who you are and I know what you do."

"Neat," I said. "I've been waiting all morning for someone to come tell me that."

"Maybe you should've worn the novelty shirt," she said.

"Maybe."

She looked at me for a minute or two without speaking. I was comfortable with silence. I'd spent most of my time alone for a few decades now. I liked it okay, or at least I'd learned to tell myself that. I was curious what she thought she was doing, but not nearly curious enough to ask. She'd come to me, so she'd tell me eventually, and I had plenty of time to kill.

Finally she said, "You're a cool one, Frank."

"Sure," I said.

"You're not what I expected. I came in here prepared for you to knock the table over and threaten me."

"Should I?"

"If it makes you feel good," she said, "have at it. But no, there's no reason for it. Do you know who I am?"

"You're Gina Cavaleri," I told her. "You're thirty-seven years old and recently divorced. You were born in Queens. Don't feel bad, lots of people are. Lately you've taken to acting mysterious in diners, or so I gather."

"That's good," she said. "But I didn't come here to act mysterious. I came here to give you something."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," she said. "My ex-husband."

Her ex-husband. Vic Fontana.

"Nice talking to you," I told her, and got out some cash to pay the check.

"No, wait," she said. "I know you want Vic. I'll hand him to you."

"Playing along, now, why?"

"Because he's scum," she said. "That's why I divorced him."

"He didn't suddenly become scum," I told her. "He's got plenty of practice."

"I realize that," she said. "Believe me."

"My question stands, then. Why? Why now? Why me? Why this?"

She gave me a hard look, one I hadn't really expected from her face. It didn't suit her well and it spoke of experiences I'd rather not hear in words. "You're not in the book, Frank. In fact, it took some doing just to find out what I do know about you, because nobody wants to talk about you and I'm not much of a researcher. There's plenty of public knowledge about you, but it wasn't as easy as just opening the phone book."

"Go on," I said. Lots of questions left unanswered.

"I want him brought down hard. I could hire a hit, and maybe it'd even work, but it wouldn't be what I want. A hit's done for money and it's nothing personal. I want it personal. I think every time you take someone down, it's personal, and the bigger the target the more personal it gets."

"Yes and no," I said. "But keep talking."

"There's not much left to tell," she said. "Vic is too big a lowlife to live. I want to help you resolve that. You want to resolve that. So it seems to me like we've got something there."

"Except I could just take Vic out myself anyway," I pointed out.

"If it were that easy, I think you'd have done it."

"So many scumbags, so little time," I said.

"Nice," she said. "You should do greeting cards. You know I'm right, though. Vic's alive because he's been more trouble than the next guy, so you've gone after the next guy. I want to make Vic the next guy now."

She wasn't wrong. Vic Fontana was professionally paranoid, and sadly, I had little to do with it. I hadn't been at it all that long, then, and I was still building up the fear of me in the guts of the mob. And even if that weren't true, Vic had plenty more to worry about. Even for a wiseguy he had a lot of enemies; he wasn't much for the old-fashioned way of negotiating with other families and outfits and pretty much tended to step on whoever he liked, whenever it suited him. Typically, this sort of behavior got a guy cold, stiff and, if he was lucky, buried in one box. Vic was more than lucky, because he was not only alive but thriving, a testament to his caution, not to mention the power he had to put it into practice.

"Okay," I said. "I don't trust you. But maybe I won't have to."

"I don't care about trust," she said. "I care about bullets."


End file.
